An Empirically Derived Framework for Conceptualizing Schein’s Career Orientation Theory

Abstract

In response to Feldman and Bolino’s call for a career anchor categorization system, several nonempirical and empirical attempts have been made to describe the relationships between career anchors. Feldman and Bolino suggest that such a system would be useful for counseling individuals and describing their career decisions. This article identifies the weaknesses of current career anchor relationship models and proposes an approach for conceptualizing complementarity and exclusivity relationships between career anchors. The results suggest a new approach for describing the underlying dimensions which influence career decisions. Four underlying career dimensions with dichotomous poles are identified and described. It is suggested that Schein’s practice of characterizing career orientation using eight career anchor profiles may be too inflexible and imprecise to accommodate current understandings of career orientation. It would be simpler, yet more precise, to map individuals directly to the underlying dimensions that govern career anchors rather than use career anchors as an intermediary.

Keywords

career orientation careers career anchors

Schein’s career anchor theory laid an important foundation for the study of internal careers (Derr & Briscoe, 2007). It was born serendipitously from a longitudinal study on organizational culture. Schein hoped the study would help clarify the mechanisms by which organizations create conformity. Instead, he found that organizational homogeneity was driven more by individual choices than employee socialization. It turned out that employees opted out of organizations in which they did not fit well and were drawn toward environments that were supportive to them. After analyzing 15 years of psychological data from 44 participants, he coined the phrase “career anchor” to describe individual collections of talents, values, and needs that drive career decisions. Schein drew upon the metaphor of a marine anchor to describe how career anchors operate. In the same way that an anchor limits where a boat may drift, as individuals drift away from work environments supportive of their core career-related talents, values, and needs, they feel tension and are drawn back to organizations that support their career anchor center (Schein, 1975, 1980). Schein, Derr, and DeLong cataloged eight specific career anchors (DeLong, 1981; Derr, 1980) and developed the Career Orientations Inventory (COI) to assess them. These career anchors include:

Technical/Functional Competence—Primarily excited by the content of the work itself, prefers advancement only in his or her technical or functional area of competence, generally disdains, and fears general management as too political.

General Managerial Competence—Primarily excited by the opportunity to analyze and solve problems under conditions of incomplete information and uncertainty, likes harnessing people together to achieve common goals, and stimulated (rather than exhausted) by crisis situations.

Autonomy/Independence—Primarily motivated to seek work situations which are maximally free of organizational constraints, wants to set own schedule and own pace of work, and is willing to trade-off opportunities for promotion to have more freedom.

Security/Stability—Primarily motivated by job security and long-term attachment to one organization, willing to conform and to be fully socialized into an organization’s values and norms, and tends to dislike travel and relocation.

Entrepreneurial/Creativity—Primarily motivated by the need to build or create something that is entirely their own project, easily bored and likes to move from project to project, and more interested in initiating new enterprises than in managing established ones.

Service/Dedication to a Cause—Primarily motivated to improve the world in some fashion, wants to align work activities with personal values about helping society, and more concerned with finding jobs that meet their values than their skills.

Pure Challenge—Primarily motivated to overcome major obstacles, solve almost unsolvable problems, or win out over extremely tough opponents; define their careers in terms of daily combat or competition in which winning is everything; and very single-minded and intolerant of those without comparable aspirations.

Lifestyle—Primarily motivated to balance career with lifestyle; highly concerned with issues such as paternity/maternity leaves, day care options, and so on; and looks for organizations that have strong profamily values and programs.

Feldman and Bolino (1996) summarized four contributions that Schein’s career anchor theory made to the study of career identity. First, the theory recognizes that career identities are immature at first and develop through real experiences over time, thus younger people may not know what drives their career decisions. Second, rather than choosing an occupation (eg, teaching), people choose career paths within industries (eg, a Technical/Functional track in academic research, a managerial track in administration, an entrepreneurial path in corporate training, an autonomy track as a tenured professor, or a security track in a government institution). Third, the career paths of people in the same vocation can be as different as people in different industries, and the paths of people with the same career anchor may be similar across industries. Finally, career anchors constrain the career choices of individuals in predictable ways.

Research demonstrates that a better “fit” between individuals’ work environments and their career anchors can lead to improved job satisfaction, job stability, organizational commitment, work quality and quantity, and retention (Ellison & Schreuder, 2000; Feldman & Bolino, 1996; Igbaria, Kassicieh, & Silver, 1999; Schein, 1990b). In addition, employees and employers can gain better insight into motivation (Barth, 1993) and effective career development (Evans, 1996) by understanding individuals’ career anchors. These factors are important to both the employee’s and the organization’s success. For more information, Chapman (2013) provides a detailed historical and theoretical literature review of career anchor theory.

Career Anchor Plurality

Schein contends that an individual can have only one career anchor. He states that by definition, a career anchor is the one package of talents, interests, and values that governs career-related decisions (Schein, 1980). However, empirical studies have shown evidence that as much as 46% of individuals are influenced by multiple career anchors when making career decisions (Danziger & Valency, 2006; Ramakrishna & Potosky, 2003). Feldman and Bolino (1996) suggested that specific characteristics of each career anchor might cause them to have complementary or exclusive relationships that would limit or promote their combination within an individual. For example, they theorize that Entrepreneurial/Creativity characterized by change, and Security/Stability, characterized by lack of change, might be less likely to appear in the same person, while both Technical/Functional competence and Security/Stability are characterized by not wanting change in the kind of work performed and they may be more likely to coexist. Feldman and Bolino suggested that a categorization system for career anchor combinations might be useful for describing and counseling individuals. For example, a person with a combination of Technical/Functional competence and Pure Challenge might be more comfortable at a cutting edge research lab in the private sector where more risk is involved, while a person with a combination of Technical/Functional competence and Security/Stability might do better in civil service where there is less risk.

Intuitional Models of Career Anchor Relationships

Several intuitional, nonempirical, attempts have been made to describe the relationships between career anchors. Although Schein’s conceptualization of career anchor theory did not allow for multiple career anchors, he does suggest that six career anchors can be seen as dichotomies: Technical/Functional versus General Managerial, Security/Stability versus Autonomy/Independence, and Entrepreneurial/Creativity versus Service/Dedication to a Cause (Schein, 1990a). Feldman and Bolino also speculated on the relationships found within career anchors. They drew inspiration from Holland’s (1985) six-sided model of career classifications and developed an eight-sided figure to represent the relationships between Schein’s career anchors (Figure 1). In Feldman and Bolino’s model, adjacent items are complementary and those opposite each other are exclusive. Finally, Bristow (2004) proposes that Pure Challenge, Entrepreneurial/Creativity, and Autonomy/Independence have a complementary relationship, while Entrepreneurial/Creativity is mutually inconsistent with Technical/Functional and Autonomy/Independence is mutually inconsistent with Security/Stability.

Figure 1.
Feldman and Bolino’s octagonal model of career anchor relationships.

Empirical Models of Career Anchor Relationships

Wils, Wils, and Tremblay (2010) developed an empirically based model of career anchor relationships by drawing upon Schwartz’s Universal Structure of Values (1992) for inspiration. They collected career anchor data with a COI and used correlations to determine which anchors were complementary and exclusive in their sample. By performing multidimensional scaling (MDS), they were able to map these relationships in two-dimensional space. They then oriented these relationships graphically on Schwartz’s four-value poles: Self-Transcendence, Conservation, Openness to Change, and Self-Enhancement (Figure 2). Relationships described within this empirically derived model are unlike any of the intuitional models previously mentioned.

Figure 2.
Wils, Wils, and Tremblay’s model of career anchor relationships.

Problem

Although Feldman and Bolino had proposed a career anchor model, they suggested that empirical and statistical work needed to be done to confirm it. Barclay, Chapman, and Brown (2013) conducted an empirical study using t-tests to identify which intuitional modal, if any, best aligned with the relationships found within correlation data from nine existing career anchor studies. They found that while none of the intuitional models represented the relationships found in the studies well, Schein’s dichotomies slightly outperformed others. Barclay et al. note that the relationships found between the eight career anchors are complex and difficult to model in two dimensions.

Wils et al.’s (2010) empirically based model of career anchor relationships attempted to analyze career anchor relationships statistically using MDS. However, they chose to limit their analysis to two dimensions. The benefits of this approach are obvious: It is easy to read and interpret their model. At the same time, this approach sacrifices precision for the simplicity of two dimensions.

It is proposed here that the two-dimensional career anchor relationship models developed by Feldman and Bolino and Wils et al. have two significant weaknesses. First, the complexity of career anchor relationships suggests that simplified 2D models may remove too much information and limit the usefulness and accuracy of the model. Second, both Feldman and Bolino and Wils et al. attempted to visually represent the relationships between career anchors by interpreting them in the context of another model, that is, Feldman and Bolino attempted to overlay the organizational structure of Holland’s existing, though conceptually different, six-sided model on career anchor relationships with an eight-sided model, and Wils et al. started with Schwartz’s Universal Structure of Values semantic model and then endeavored to see how their data fit it. Both approaches unnecessarily constrain the presentation and interpretation of career anchor relationships.

This study takes a different approach by modeling the data in as many dimensions as are required to represent its inherent relationships and dimensionality well. Possible semantic definitions for dimensions and their dichotomous poles are then drawn from the nature and characteristics of each career anchor as defined by COI items. This approach allows for a more precise representation and interpretation of the complementary and exclusive relationships within career anchors.

Method

Data Collection

This study draws upon archival data from 2,603 participants who completed a COI as part of a career development workshop given by a corporate training firm (Targeted Learning, 2012). Responses were collected using an online assessment during the prework portion of approximately 65 workshops. Approximately 49% of the participants attended workshops in North America, 21% in Europe, 15% in Asia, 12% in Australia; and the remaining 3% attended in India, Africa, Russia, and the Middle East. Industries represented in the sample are predominantly oil and gas and also include aeronautical engineering, biochemistry, finance, and software design. Gender, race, ethnicity, age, occupation, or other demographic data were not collected as part of the workshop.

The COI career anchor data were collected in English using a modified version of the COI similar to the questionnaires used by Derr (1989) and Nordvik (1991). It uses a forced choice format with 28 items that pair statements characterizing each of the 8 career anchors with each of the other career anchors. The career anchor profile definitions in this version of the COI are essentially the same as the traditional COI with the exception of the Entrepreneurial/Creativity career anchor. For this career anchor, the emphasis on creating new organizations was eliminated from the items and replaced by an emphasis on intrapreneurship. This was due in part to the workshop’s focus on developing employees within the client organizations rather than encouraging them to leave to create a new firm. This career anchor is similar to the career anchor Creativity proposed by Danziger, Rachman-Moore, and Valency (2008) who factored Entrepreneur/Creativity into two separate career anchors: Creativity and Entrepreneurism.

Statistical Method

Career anchor complementarity can be described as the degree to which two career anchors are preferred by the same person; career anchor exclusivity can be described as the degree to which, if a person prefers one career anchor, the second career anchor will not be preferred. In this study, these relationships are measured using correlation coefficients—a positive correlation indicates complementarity, and negative correlation indicates exclusivity. The forced choice format of the COI asks respondents to indicate a preference between career anchors presented two at a time. The result is a set of each respondent’s preference scores for each career anchor. These scores indicate the rank order of all career anchor preference for each participant. Since rank order data are ordinal, Spearman’s ρ correlation coefficient was used to compute the career anchor correlations. The resulting correlation matrix was then converted to a Euclidian distance matrix using the following formula based on the cosine theorem:

$d_{x y} = \sqrt{2 * (1 - r_{x y})},$

where d_xy is the distance between two variables and r_xy is their correlation coefficient. These distance values indicate how far each career anchor is conceptually from one another. The smaller the value, the more complementary the two variables are; the larger the value, the more exclusive the variables are.

Nonparametric MDS was then used to connect and visualize the distances between all of the career anchors at once. MDS does this by using an algorithm to arrange the career anchors in multidimensional (k) space such that the distances among career anchors are preserved as well as possible while simultaneously displaying all other distances. For example, the relative distances among career anchors could be represented in one dimension by plotting all career anchors along a line. As you can imagine, the result would likely be somewhat “forced” and some of the distance data would be lost to make them all fit the line. Moving to two dimensions would allow the distances to be plotted on a plane. This would likely improve the quality of the visualization, but there would still be some data lost as the distances are constrained to two dimensions. The degree to which the MDS algorithm must “force” data to fit within a specific number of dimensions (k) is measured by a value referred to as stress. The less stress, the less “forcing” was required by the algorithm to fit the data in the requested dimensionality (k). In this study, a MDS stress test was used to identify what level of dimensionality (k) best represents the career anchor complementarity and exclusivity relationships captured by the correlation and distance data. After the appropriate level of dimensionality was established, proximity coordinates were generated for each career anchor in multidimensional (k) space. Finally, each career anchor was plotted on each dimensional axis, and a draftsman chart was generated to illustrate career anchor relationships and distribution in all dimensions. Career anchors that have high values for each dichotomous pole of each dimensional axis are noted.

Results and Discussion

Career Orientation Relationships

Table 1 contains the Spearman’s ρ correlation matrix for the eight career anchors based on data from 2,603 participants.

Table 1.
Spearman’s ρ Correlation Matrix Indicating Career Anchor Complementarity and Exclusivity Relationships.

EC SD AI GM SS TF PC

SD −0.15

AI −0.26 −0.11

GM −0.01 −0.24 −0.24

SS −0.29 −0.12 −0.11 −0.17

TF 0.03 −0.31 −0.03 −0.20 0.01

PC 0.12 −0.24 −0.13 0.12 −0.35 −0.02

LS −0.30 0.09 0.05 −0.37 −0.02 −0.23 −0.38

Note. SD = Service/Dedication to a Cause; AI = Autonomy/Independence; GM = General Managerial Competence; SS = Security/Stability; TF = Technical Functional; PC = Pure Challenge; LS = Lifestyle.

Feldman and Bolino’s (1996) suggestion that career anchors have mutually exclusive and complementary relationships is supported by this study. The complementary (positive correlation) and mutually exclusive (negative correlation) relationships between career anchors are illustrated in Figure 3. Three groups are formed within the career anchors. Group I contains the complementary career anchors Entrepreneurial/Creativity, Pure Challenge, and General Managerial Competence. Group II contains the complementary career anchors Service/Dedication to a Cause, Lifestyle, and Autonomy/Independence. Group III consists of two orthogonal career anchors: Security and Stability and Technical/Functional. Each of these groups is mutually exclusive to the others.

Figure 3.
Spearman’s ρ for each career anchor in relation to the other seven, arranged by complementarity and exclusivity. They form three distinct complementary or orthogonal groups that are mutually exclusive to each other. Note. SD = Service/Dedication to a Cause; AI = Autonomy/Independence; GM = General Managerial Competence; SS = Security/Stability; TF = Technical Functional; PC = Pure Challenge; LS = Lifestyle.

It is interesting to note that these groupings are the same as those illustrated by Feldman and Bolino in their model. Also, correlations found in this study are consistent with all of Schein’s dichotomous pairs and all but one of Bristow’s suggested relationships. It would seem then that even though each intuitive model is markedly different, the imprecise nature of representing the complex relationships of career anchor data in two dimensions, using dichotomous and complementary pairs, allowed each model to be at least partially consistent with the data found in this study. It is interesting to note however that only one of Wils et al.’s empirical pairings, Pure Challenge and Entrepreneurial/Creativity, are supported by this study.

Support for Barclay et al.’s (2013) suggestion that career anchor relationships are too complex to be accurately represented in two dimensions becomes obvious when comparing Feldman and Bolino’s model with correlation data from this study. In Feldman and Bolino’s geometric model, the strength of all adjoining relationships is visually represented as equal, though correlation data indicate that this is clearly not the case. For example, the complementary relationships between General Managerial Competency to Entrepreneurial/Creativity and General Managerial Competency to Pure Challenge are represented the same even though their correlations are −.01 and .12, respectively. Also, due to their octagonal model format, some mutually exclusive career anchors are adjacent to each other, indicating complementarity. For example, Security/Stability to Service/Dedication to a Cause, which have a mutually exclusive correlation of −.29, are illustrated side by side, indicating complementarity. In addition, the Feldman and Bolino model only allows for pairs of mutually exclusive career anchors, a one-to-one relationship, but some career anchors demonstrate exclusivity to more than one career anchor. For example, the correlations between Lifestyle to Pure Challenge and Lifestyle to Entrepreneurial/Creativity are similar at −.38 and −.30, respectively, but Lifestyle is represented on Feldman and Bolino’s model as directly opposite Pure Challenge and at a right angle to Entrepreneurial/Creativity. Had the relationships been accurately represented both Pure Challenge and Entrepreneurial /Creativity would be directly opposite Lifestyle. Finally, orthogonality is not represented well in Feldman and Bolino’s model. Pure Challenge and Technical/Functional Competency are nearly orthogonal to each other with a correlation of −.02, yet Feldman and Bolino’s model represents them side by side, indicating complementarity.

Multidimensional Scaling

The strongest evidence of the weakness of a two-dimensional career anchor relationship model comes from examining the MDS stress test results. The number of dimensions for which MDS was computed is represented by k. The MDS stress test results for k = 1– 5 are given in Figure 4. At k = 4, the stress is essentially 0 (5.98E-14). This indicates that the career anchor relationships in this study can best be represented in four dimensions. The proximity coordinate results of nonparametric MDS for k = 4 are given in Table 2.

Figure 4.
Multidimensional scaling (MDS) stress test indicates that four dimensions best illustrate career anchor complementarity and exclusivity relationships.

Table 2.
Coordinates of Nonparametric MDS for k = 4 Dimensions.

I II III IV

PC 0.83 0.24 0.15 −0.16

EC 0.68 0.06 0.14 0.46

GM 0.67 0.23 −0.44 −0.44

TF 0.2 −0.77 0.08 0.37

AI −0.45 −0.15 0.59 −0.5

SS −0.49 −0.49 −0.64 0.04

SD −0.56 0.76 −0.07 0.25

LS −0.89 0.11 0.18 −0.02

Note. MDS = multidimensional scaling; PC = Pure Challenge; EC = Entrepreneurship/Creativity; GM = General Managerial Competence; TF = Technical Functional; AI = Autonomy/Independance; SS = Security/Stability; SD = Service/Dedication to a Cause; LS = Lifestyle.

While plotting four dimensional data is complex, the 4D model illustrated in Figures 5 and 6 accurately and precisely represents all complementary, mutually exclusive, and orthogonal career anchor relationships found in this study. These figures illustrate each dimensional axis and the placement of each career anchor on the dichotomous axis poles.

Figure 5.
Underlying career anchor dimensional axes with possible semantic titles, indicating the location of proximity values for each career anchor on each axis.

Figure 6.
Drafsman plot of the complementarity and exclusivity relationships between eight career anchors in four dimensions, with possible semantic descriptors for each dimension. The diagonals contain bar charts indicating the position of each career anchor for each axis.

Semantic Definitions for Career Orientation Model Axes

By examining the location of career anchors on the axis of each dimension and analyzing the COI items and career anchor profiles, it is possible to begin to extrapolate or deduce the properties or characteristics that govern each career orientation axis and their dichotomous poles by looking for common and contrasting career anchor traits. In this way, candidates for the semantic meaning of each dimensional axis and each dichotomous pole can be developed. Table 3 outlines proposed semantic labels, brief definitions, and defining career anchors for each dimensional axis and dichotomous pole.

Table 3.
Proposed Labels and Definitions for Four Career Anchor Dimensional Axes With Dichotomous Poles.

Axis I—Interests Axis II—Development Axis III—Conformity Axis IV—Change

Pole A Personal Self Independence Cautious/Consistent

Definition Furthering relationships and interests outside of the organization Developing one’s own capabilities and competencies Increasing freedom to act independently Maintaining control over status quo

Defining Career Anchors
Lifestyle

Service/Dedication to Cause

Security/Stability

Autonomy/Independence

Technical/Functional

Security/Stability

Autonomy/Independence

Autonomy/Independence

General Managerial

Pole B Organizational Others Conformity Inventive/Curious

Definition Furthering relationships and interests within the organization Developing others’ capabilities and competencies Conforming to organizational norms Developing novel approaches to accomplishing goals

Defining Career Anchors
Pure Challenge

General Managerial

Entrepreneurial/Creativity

Service/Dedication to a Cause

Security/Stability

General Managerial

Entrepreneurial/Creativity

Technical/Functional

Axis I is governed by a focus on relationships and interests outside (Personal) versus inside (Organizational) the organization. The Personal pole of this axis is defined as furthering relationships and interests outside the organization and is characterized most by the career anchor Lifestyle. Service/Dedication to Cause, Security/ Stability, and Autonomy/ Independence are also strong on this pole. The Organizational pole is defined as furthering relationships and interests within the organization and is characterized by Pure Challenge, General Managerial Competency, and Entrepreneurial/Creativity. Interestingly, the career anchor Technical/Functional is largely orthogonal to this axis, though the Organizational pole has some influence on it. This is perhaps partially explained by Technical/Functional’s strong placement on the Self-dimension of Axis II. While the Personal versus Organizational axis is concerned with relationships, the Technical/Functional career anchor emphasizes the individual.

Axis II is governed by the dichotomy between developing the capabilities and capacities of one’s Self versus Others. The Self pole of this axis is defined by developing one’s own capabilities and is most characterized by the Technical/Functional career anchor, which emphasizes becoming an expert in one’s chosen field. Developing one’s own ability also plays a strong role in Security/Stability, where maintaining one’s perceived value in the eyes of others is important to keeping employment. Self-development also has some influence on the Autonomy/Independence career anchor. The Others pole is defined by developing the capabilities and capacities of others and is most characterized by Service/Dedication to a Cause. This career anchor involves working to meet the needs and improve the condition of others. The Others pole also has some influence on Pure Challenge and General Managerial Competence, both of which can require developing others for success.

Axis III is governed by issues of conformity. The Independence pole is defined by increasing one’s own freedom to act independently. It is characterized by the career anchor Autonomy/Independence, and career decisions are made specifically to increase individuals’ control over their own behavior. On the opposite end of the axis is the Conformity pole. It is defined by conforming to organizational norms. This pole is characterized by the career anchors Security/Stability and General Managerial Competency. Conforming to organizational norms is an important element of “fitting in” to company cultures and a requirement for both successful managers and those seeking stability through long-term employment.

Finally, Axis IV is governed by issues of change. On one end is the Cautious/Consistent pole, defined by maintaining control over status quo. It is characterized by the career anchors Autonomy/Independence and General Managerial Competence. Both of these career anchors emphasize charting and maintaining a course and both are invested in aligning environmental factors to produce supportive and stable conditions for one’s agenda. On the other end is the Inventive/Curious pole, defined by developing novel approaches to accomplishing goals. It is characterized by the career anchors Entrepreneurial/Creativity and Technical/Functional. These career anchors emphasize creating new solutions to problems and necessitate a change in the environment and behavior.

Understanding Career Anchors in Terms of the Four Axis Model

By comparing the resulting four axis model to the career anchors and where they lie upon them, it is possible to begin understanding the underlying characteristics that define each career anchor. For example, the career anchor Lifestyle is almost entirely governed by a focus on personal interests and relationships, while Pure Challenge is almost entirely governed by a focus on organizational interests and relationships. Both of these career anchors are almost orthogonal to the other three axes. Also, Autonomy/Independence and General Managerial Competency can be seen as two sides of the same coin. Both share the Cautious/Consistent end of the Change axis but are polar opposites on the Interests and Conformity axes. While both can be seen as managing one’s career, Autonomy/Independence focuses on developing one’s own skills in one’s own way while General Managerial Competency focuses on developing others’ skills while aligning to organizational norms. The underlying characteristics of Entrepreneur/Creativity and Technical/Functional are also interesting. Both score high on the Inventive/Curious end of the Change axis, but they are differentiated by a focus on meeting organizational interests versus meeting one’s own interests. The axes strongly associated with each career anchor are summarized in Table 4.

Table 4.
Axes Strongly Associated With Each Career Anchor.

Career Anchor Strong Dimensions

Group I—Complementary

Life Style

Autonomy/Independence

Service/Dedication to a Cause
Personal Individual, Cautious/Consistent, Personal Others, Personal

Group II—Complementary

General Managerial

Entrepreneurial/Creativity

Pure Challenge
Organizational, Cautious/Consistent, Group Organizational, Inventive/Curious Organizational

Group III—Orthogonal

Security/Stability

Technical Functional
Conformity, Organizational, Self Self, Inventive/Curious

Understanding Career Anchor Relationships in Terms of the Four Axis Model

The underlying dimensional axes also clarify the underlying characteristics that drive career anchor complementarity and mutual exclusivity illustrated in Figure 3. The Personal versus Organizational axis has the most impact on career anchor proximity scores. As illustrated in Figure 5, its proximity value spread is the largest, and more of the anchors are closer to its poles. Note then that the career anchors in Group I are complementary to each other and each falls on the Personal pole. Career anchors in Group II are also complementary to each other and each falls on the Organizational pole. As the characteristics of Personal and Organizational interests are dichotomous poles on the same axis, it is easy to understand then why career anchors from Group I are mutually exclusive to career anchors in Group II. Career anchors in Group III fall on the Self pole of the Development axis and are orthogonal to each other and mutually exclusive to Groups I and II. Figure 6 presents all the relationships between all career anchors in all four dimensions using a draftsman plot.

Toward a New Career Orientation Framework and COI

It has been difficult for career anchor researchers to agree on one set of career anchors. Schein suggests that for reasons of theoretical parsimony, only the eight career anchors he, Derr, and DeLong proposed should be considered (Schein, 1980, 1990a). However, other career anchors were proposed early on. Schein felt that the original eight career anchors subsumed the other career anchors suggested. For example, he felt that the career anchors Variety and Change, seeking careers that provide the maximum number of different types of challenges, as well as Power and Influence, are often met in the General Managerial Competence career anchor (Schein, 1980, 1990a). However, numerous factor analytical studies have been performed that contradict Schein on this issue (e.g., Jiang, Klein, & Balloun, 1995). As a result, various studies have employed COIs that measure as many as 11 career anchors. In these studies, combinations of the separate career anchors Creativity, Entrepreneurial, Geographic Security, Job Security, Variety, and Identity, Technical Transfer, Project, and Internationalism were added to the original eight. Whether or not these additional career anchors are universal is unclear, it could be that these additional career anchors were unique to the population being studied. In addition, other anchors have been suggested but not empirically tested like Spiritual Purpose (Baruch, 2004), Being a Warrior (Derr, 1980), and Being Marketable (Ituma & Simpson, 2007).

Career anchor definitions may be too limiting and may not adequately represent career orientations as they have developed in the 40 years since they were conceived by Schein and others. It is suggested here that a different approach than career anchors could be taken to catalog career orientation. It would be simpler, yet more precise, to map individuals directly to the underlying factors that govern career anchors rather than use career anchors as an intermediary. The data in this study yield four underlying dimensions that govern career orientation. Additional studies could be done to further clarify and solidify a universal set of dimensions that govern career orientation and their definitions. Then, in the same way that the Big 5 and Meyers Briggs scales are used to describe an individual’s personality, the underlying career trait scales could be used to describe an individual’s career orientation. Rather than focus on specific career anchors like General Managerial Competency, a profile could be generated for each individual indicating their position on each career orientation scale. Common profiles could be named and descriptions written for them. In addition, work would need to be done to develop a new COI that focused on career orientation scales rather than individual career anchors.

Implications for Career Counseling

The career anchor plurality phenomenon may in fact be an artifact of low granularity within career anchor theory. In some cases, career anchors may be too blunt of an instrument to accurately describe career orientation. Take for example a hypothetical person whose career drivers are characterized by strong personal interests, a strong desire to serve others, and a passion for creating. To accurately describe this person using career anchors, we would need to say they hold three career anchors: Lifestyle, Service/Dedication, and Entrepreneurial/Creativity. Obviously, this runs counter to Schein’s prescription for only one career anchor. It might also be confusing to the individual who could have a difficult time interpreting the results. However, using the four career orientation axes, this person would receive a score on each axis, telling a more complete and potentially more accurate story.

The question as to whether the hypothetical person described above actually exists, and how frequently that level of plurality might occur is important to answer to gauge how valuable the level of granularity provided by the four career orientation axes would be. If most people’s career drivers are found on the end of one or two axes and the center of the others, one or two career anchors would be sufficient in most cases to describe a person’s career orientation. However, if people’s career driver preferences were found evenly distributed across all four axes, it would indicate that a more refined scale than career anchors would be useful.

To help visualize the distribution of career anchor preference, a cluster analysis of the 2,603 participants in this study was performed to identify individuals with similar career anchor preference patterns. A solution containing 222 clusters was found. Each cluster was then plotted as a sphere in k = 3 MDS space in Figure 7. The size of each sphere indicates the relative number of participants in that cluster. The results demonstrate that there is a great deal of variety in the level and distribution of career anchor preference. Thus, rather than having specific career anchors, with definitive characteristics, individual’s characteristics are distributed along the spectrum of each axis. Understanding the underlying dimensions that influence a specific individual’s career decisions could have a significant impact on helping them find a strong person/organization fit and improve job satisfaction, both of which should result in improved work outcomes like lower turnover, increased motivation, and better performance.

Figure 7.
2,603 participants clustered by similarity of career anchor preference into 222 clusters and plotted using multidimensional scaling (MDS) in k = 3 space. Plot size indicates the count of the cluster, larger plots have more people. This plot demonstrates a great deal of variety in the level and distribution of career anchor preference.

Future Research

Two promising areas of future research could stem from this study. First, past career anchor studies that include correlation data could be reanalyzed to identify the underlying dimensions found in their career anchor data. This information could be used to corroborate or refine the dimensions found in this study. The result would be a final set or series of population specific sets of career orientation scales that could be used to evaluate individuals. The second area of future research involves improving the COI. Almost all current COIs grew out of Schein’s original work with a very small, homogeneous sample: 44 White male MIT MBA graduates (Schein, 1975). Work should be done to extend the scope of the parameters evaluated in the COI as far as possible so that items for as many career drivers as possible are included. The resulting long form COI should then be given to a very large, very heterogeneous series of samples. Finally, the results should be factor analyzed and reduced to one or more population specific, parsimonious COIs that are then tested and verified. The resulting COI would be a valuable tool for employee improvement and career counseling. Such a tool would be especially useful if career orientation profiles were correlated with success in specific types of work environments.

	EC	SD	AI	GM	SS	TF	PC
SD	−0.15
AI	−0.26	−0.11
GM	−0.01	−0.24	−0.24
SS	−0.29	−0.12	−0.11	−0.17
TF	0.03	−0.31	−0.03	−0.20	0.01
PC	0.12	−0.24	−0.13	0.12	−0.35	−0.02
LS	−0.30	0.09	0.05	−0.37	−0.02	−0.23	−0.38

	I	II	III	IV
PC	0.83	0.24	0.15	−0.16
EC	0.68	0.06	0.14	0.46
GM	0.67	0.23	−0.44	−0.44
TF	0.2	−0.77	0.08	0.37
AI	−0.45	−0.15	0.59	−0.5
SS	−0.49	−0.49	−0.64	0.04
SD	−0.56	0.76	−0.07	0.25
LS	−0.89	0.11	0.18	−0.02

	Axis I—Interests	Axis II—Development	Axis III—Conformity	Axis IV—Change
Pole A	Personal	Self	Independence	Cautious/Consistent
Definition	Furthering relationships and interests outside of the organization	Developing one’s own capabilities and competencies	Increasing freedom to act independently	Maintaining control over status quo
Defining Career Anchors	Lifestyle Service/Dedication to Cause Security/Stability Autonomy/Independence	Technical/Functional Security/Stability	Autonomy/Independence	Autonomy/Independence General Managerial
Pole B	Organizational	Others	Conformity	Inventive/Curious
Definition	Furthering relationships and interests within the organization	Developing others’ capabilities and competencies	Conforming to organizational norms	Developing novel approaches to accomplishing goals
Defining Career Anchors	Pure Challenge General Managerial Entrepreneurial/Creativity	Service/Dedication to a Cause	Security/Stability General Managerial	Entrepreneurial/Creativity Technical/Functional

Career Anchor	Strong Dimensions
Group I—Complementary
Life Style Autonomy/Independence Service/Dedication to a Cause	Personal Individual, Cautious/Consistent, Personal Others, Personal
Group II—Complementary
General Managerial Entrepreneurial/Creativity Pure Challenge	Organizational, Cautious/Consistent, Group Organizational, Inventive/Curious Organizational
Group III—Orthogonal
Security/Stability Technical Functional	Conformity, Organizational, Self Self, Inventive/Curious

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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